Over the past few years, we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com some help in playing office pools, one of the most popular methods to follow the NFL aside from fantasy football leagues. For the past few seasons, the staff members have done the Staff Confidence Pool Challenge, where numerous staffers try and pick the winners each week with a confidence ranking, and Jeff Pasquino’s “For The Win” column where Jeff attempts to pick each and every NFL game against the Las Vegas spread. Both of these have been very popular features, so this year Footballguys is adding a combination of the two called the “Against the Spread” Challenge and also the Eliminator Challenge, where staffers have to pick a team to win each week. Just one? That sounds easy, but here is the catch – you can only pick the team you choose in a given week once all season long. Many contests and pools out there get pretty big, so an Eliminator (or Survivor) Pool can go 16 or 17 weeks.
Jeff Pasquino has provided some insight into this kind of contest with two pre-season articles, first one that describes this kind of contest along with some advice on how to pick a team each week:
The second article is rather interesting, which describes Jeff’s preseason plan to get all the way through 17 weeks. Will it work? We are about to find out.
This pool will run all season long, but to keep participation up, the pool will crown the staffer with the best W-L record for the season (which means that everyone in the pool will continue to make picks every week).
THIS WEEK'S PICK SUMMARY
Here are the picks for this week, along with last week's results:
Staff Member | Record | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
Alessandro Miglio | 2-0 | ATL | SEA | GB | ||||||||||||||
William Grant | 2-0 | ATL | OAK | GB | ||||||||||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 2-0 | BUF | OAK | GB | ||||||||||||||
Andrew Garda | 2-0 | BUF | AZ | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Bear Heiser | 2-0 | BUF | AZ | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Dave Larkin | 2-0 | BUF | BAL | GB | ||||||||||||||
Devin Knotts | 2-0 | BUF | SEA | LAR | ||||||||||||||
James Brimacombe | 2-0 | BUF | OAK | NE | ||||||||||||||
Jason Wood | 2-0 | BUF | BAL | PIT | ||||||||||||||
Mark Wimer | 2-0 | BUF | OAK | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Steven Holloway | 2-0 | BUF | OAK | PIT | ||||||||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 2-0 | BUF | SEA | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Andy Hicks | 2-0 | DEN | SEA | NE | ||||||||||||||
Ari Ingel | 2-0 | LAR | OAK | PHI | ||||||||||||||
Justin Howe | 2-0 | LAR | OAK | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 2-0 | PIT | OAK | GB | ||||||||||||||
John Mamula | 2-0 | PIT | OAK | NE | ||||||||||||||
Chris Feery | 1-1 | HOU | OAK | NE | ||||||||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 1-1 | HOU | SEA | GB | ||||||||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 1-1 | HOU | OAK | NE |
DISCUSSION
Twenty staffers are in the pool and unlike Week 1, Week 2 was rather uneventful as the whole staff was a perfect 20-0 last weekend. With Seattle, Oakland, Baltimore and Arizona as the four main picks, my "oh, we went 20-0" comment sounds like it was a cake walk, but it was far from it. Oakland did handily take care of the Jets at home and Baltimore handled Cleveland rather easily, but Seattle struggled at home against San Francisco and the Cardinals needed overtime to take care of the Colts in Indianapolis.
Now me look ahead to Week 3, and there are three favored choices, highlighted by Green Bay at home against the seemingly woeful Bengals. With the Packers at home and favored by almost double digits, they are a clear top choice for the week. Miami (at the Jets) and New England (hosting Houston) are the next favorite options for the staff with both the Dolphins and the Patriots receiving five votes (the Packers received six). The Jets and Miami are long time divisional rivals, but New York has looked rather bad so far on the young season. I would hesitate to put my top choice on a road team that just lost and has just one game under their belt. As for New England, that is a strong choice with the Patriots nearly a two touchdown favorite over a 1-1 Houston team that beat those Bengals last Thursday. New England is banged up but they should be able to win in Foxboro this week. Other less common picks by the staff include Pittsburgh (two votes) at Chicago, the Rams (one vote) at San Francisco and the Eagles (one vote) hosting the Giants. Several picks and lots of road team on the list, so Week 3 could provide some tricky results by Monday.
Please note a few things: We will be doing these picks every week, win or lose, to keep it entertaining all season long. Normally a Survivor / Eliminator pool would end once all but one player lost once, but to provide our subscribers with more perspectives, everyone will pick every week even if they lose. That said, we will still try and honor the spirit of an Eliminator / Survivor Pool, trying to win every week and not re-use any teams during the year.
COMMENTARY
Each week, contestants are invited to submit any comments that they might have about their picks. If they submit them early enough, we post them with the article. If not, the comments will be within the section below.
Jeff Pasquino: I know it is only Week 3, but I am once again going away from my preseason plan where I said to either take Indianapolis (hosting Cleveland) or Baltimore (against Jacksonville in London). The Colts are without Andrew Luck and they frankly look terrible. Baltimore is traveling to London for the first time, while that is Jacksonville's home away from home as they are going for the fifth year in a row. Throw in how banged up the Ravens are and I want no part of that game. Looking over my preseason plan I noticed I hardly had any inkling towards Green Bay, so this is the perfect time to just take the Packers and not worry about deviating too far from the script.
The Pick: Green Bay
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com